Our View - Tuesday

Fanning the flames

Wildfire postmortems take unproductive turn

California’s wildfires mostly are under control, thank goodness, but — as has become a post-natural catastrophe tradition in the United States — the partisan fingerpointing has begun in earnest. California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a Democrat, criticized President Bush for having diverted National Guard troops to Iraq. The Schwarzenegger administration is blamed by some Golden State Republicans for delays in bringing firefighting aircraft to the battle. But the analysis must go deeper than partisan scapegoating if we’re to learn anything from the tragedy.

Environmentalists argue that people shouldn’t be living in wildfire-prone areas and push “smart growth” policies aimed at controlling “sprawl.” But if fire can strike Malibu, which isn’t exactly a frontier town, it’s not just the “urban-wildland interface” that’s the problem. Not just overgrown state and federal forests, but more urbanized areas, too, are vulnerable.

Trying to cordon off development, by creating urban growth boundaries, isn’t a practical and fair approach — unless we are willing to compensate landowners, for a “taking” under the Fifth Amendment, when denying them the right to build on private parcels in potentially fire-prone areas. Using market incentives and disincentives, which require people who live in riskier areas to absorb the true cost of their decisions, is a better approach. But these already exist, to some extent.

The insurance industry, for instance, prices policies based on risk. Those who live in fire-prone areas pay more for coverage, and sometimes even are unable to get it. But the system fails when the government steps in to subsidize the premiums of people who make risky choices, as with the federal flood insurance program — or when politicians, through disaster declarations and such, too quickly or generously award government assistance to risk-takers.

Markets have less influence over government-owned land, however, which is managed based on political considerations, mostly under the influence of special interest groups. Fire risks seem higher in areas of high public (meaning, government) land ownership; lower (with a few exceptions) in places where much of the land is privately owned, mostly due to the strong incentives people have to maintain and protect their property.

When property is owned collectively, there’s less incentive to manage it wisely. Environmental rules and restrictions have leaned in recent times toward non-management, or a policy of benign neglect, under pressure from those who think human meddling in these landscapes is unnatural and wrong. That’s left more fuel to burn when lightning, a fallen power line or an arsonist ignites a fire.

We’d argue for a land management approach that puts humans and human habitats first, whenever practical, and embraces the idea that we can manage these landscapes not just for economic, aesthetic and ecological benefits, but with an eye toward safeguarding public safety as well. We shouldn’t allow the real and rhetorical smoke generated by California’s wildfires to cloud our judgements about the nature of the problem.

They promise, you pay

As the primaries near, the political promises are getting thicker than flies in a pigsty. Democrat front-runner Hillary Clinton already sets the pace. Consider these, for starters. If you elect her, Sen. Clinton promises to give a $5,000 handout, which she calls a “baby bond,” to every newborn child to help them buy homes or attend college. With 4 million babies born a year, that computes to a cool $20 billion. Over an eight-year presidency, that’s a lot of money.

As president, Clinton also promises to bribe states with $1 billion to force employers to provide seven paid, sick-leave days to employees annually. Tack another $8 billion onto a twoterm presidency.

Clinton promises to “expand access to affordable, high-quality child care.” You might ask how high-quality child care becomes affordable? The answer: with another near-billion-dollar gift of public funds. Every year.

We’re not sure how much it will cost for Clinton’s promise to pay working parents to receive paid leave to stay home to care full time for their own children. But she promises to subsidize low-income parents who want to, so they can. “Subsidies” is a way of saying “your money.”

There’s also Clinton’s $20 billion-a-year promise of a retirement savings plan for lower- and middle-class families, paid for, as you might guess, by people who don’t receive the benefits.

As the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards put it: “Sen. Clinton’s proposal is an entitlement program, not a savings plan … (it) would impose at least $20 billion a year of damage on families paying the tax bill for this giveaway program.”

That’s the point, as we enter the season of sky-high promises. No one gets something without someone else giving up something.

We don’t mean to pick on Clinton. All candidates, of both parties, engage in this sort of promising. But she exhibits the crassest political pandering that we sadly expect only to accelerate among candidates in both major parties.

Whether they’re ideologically inspired or just attempts to buy votes, promises like these reduce our democratic republic to a carnival bazaar of pitchmen barking out irresistible deals. Once candidates hit full stride, stumbling over each other to outpromise their competitors, hold on to your wallet.

We long for that refreshing promise that won’t cost anyone a dime, the one that reduces the billions doled out by Washington, rather than adding to them.